Business
Eastern Sierra housing crunch: With all this open land, why are so many workers living in vans?
Emily Markstein, a sinewy rock climber and skier who has spent seven years living and working in the Sierra resort town of Mammoth Lakes, opens a large sliding door and welcomes a stranger into her home.
One of the gleaming multimillion-dollar mansions nestled among towering pine trees and granite peaks in this exclusive mountain enclave? Not exactly.
Markstein, who has a master’s degree in historic preservation and has coached skiing, taught yoga, trimmed trees and waited tables at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, lives in a 2006 GMC van.
A rare sign for new home sales in the Eastern Sierra town of Bishop.
Like countless other adventure seekers drawn to California’s rugged and remote Eastern Sierra, Markstein, 31, initially embraced “van life” after scrolling through social media posts that made it look carefree and glamorous. She continues because she genuinely likes it, she said, but also because, even in this big, beckoning land full of wide-open spaces, there’s almost nowhere else for working people to live.
Official statistics are hard to come by, but Markstein spitballs the percentage of hourly workers in Mammoth Lakes who are living in cars and vans as “less than 50 but more than 20.” In every place she’s worked since moving here, she said, “there have been at least two of us living in our vans.”
Like so many others, she tries to hide that uncomfortable truth from tourists so as not to shatter their fantasy about escaping to an untroubled mountain paradise. But it takes effort.
“I had to play the part of the fine dining expert, like, I know my wines and I know good food,” she said with an easy, infectious grin. “But you haven’t showered in a week and a half and you’re putting deodorant on, and all these sprays, trying to make yourself look like you don’t live in your car.”
“During COVID, I was showering in the creek,” Emily Markstein says of van life. “Right now, I rotate through my friends’ houses to get my weekly shower.”
The notion of an acute housing shortage in this wild and sparsely populated region — there are about four people per square mile in Mono County and fewer than two per square mile in neighboring Inyo County — can be hard to wrap your head around.
It’s due, in large part, to the fact that more than 90 percent of the land is owned by conservation-minded government agencies: the U.S. Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management and, most controversially, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Those large, distant bureaucracies have little interest in making land available to the fast-growing ranks of outdoor enthusiasts — hikers, climbers, skiers, anglers with fly rods — flocking to this mostly unspoiled part of California near the Nevada border.
So when any sliver of private land or an already existing home hits the market, there’s usually a long line of well-to-do professionals and would-be Airbnb investors from coastal cities ready to drive the price out of reach for even the most industrious working people. As a result, essential workers are left out in the cold.
“That has always been a problem here,” said Mammoth Lakes Mayor Pro Tem Chris Bubser. But it has become noticeably worse since the pandemic, when so many well-paid professionals discovered they could work from anywhere, and so many long-term rental units became Airbnbs to accommodate them.
An artist captures the scenery in Buttermilk Country in the Inyo National Forest.
Now, Bubser said, the lack of affordable housing is a full-blown crisis making it almost impossible for hourly workers, and even some salaried professionals, to keep a traditional roof over their heads.
Last year, the schools made job offers to four teachers, but three had to say no because they couldn’t find anywhere to live, Bubser said.
“Our community is hollowing out, and it’s going to be catastrophic down the line,” Bubser said. “We want people to come and raise a family in this amazing place. It feels terrible that it’s not for everybody.”
The economics of resort towns, where tourists go to play and most everyone local hustles to get by, have been hard on working people for decades. It’s the same in ski towns throughout the American West: Lake Tahoe, Vail, Aspen, Park City.
But the Eastern Sierra’s housing crunch stretches well beyond the confines of Mammoth Lakes.
With all its wide-open spaces, there’s still essentially nowhere to live in the Eastern Sierra because of the vast portion of land owned by goverment agencies.
A 40-minute drive south on U.S. 395 descends more than 3,000 vertical feet to the floor of the Owens Valley and fills your windshield with one of the most sweeping and expansive views in the country. Snowy peaks tumble down to steep granite walls. The walls descend to lush green pastures. The pastures give way to high desert that stretches toward the horizon.
The most breathtaking part? In all of that wide open space, there’s still essentially nowhere to live.
“It’s just insane,” said Jose Garcia, mayor of Bishop, a dusty crossroads of about 3,800 people at the bottom of the hill.
Garcia has lived in Bishop for 35 years and has watched the once-sleepy ranching outpost explode in popularity with adventure-loving tourists: hikers and climbers in the summer, anglers and leaf-peepers in the fall, skiers in the winter. Tourism is by far the biggest industry, he said.
“Bishop would be like Santa Monica,” if the city had room to grow, Mayor Jose Garcia says of his town. “People would come from all over because of the beauty of this place.”
But in all his time there, “the city has not grown at all,” Garcia said.
That’s because almost all of the land in and around Bishop is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Garcia said.
More than a century ago, when it became clear the booming metropolis 300 miles to the south would very quickly dry up its own meager water supplies, its agents fanned out across the Owens Valley, buying up every acre they could find to secure rights to the precious snowmelt that flows down from the mountains each spring.
Today, the DWP owns about 250,000 acres in Inyo County, where Bishop is located.
“We are basically landlocked,” said an exasperated Garcia over coffee earlier this month, as soft morning light bathed the mountains in every direction.
California has a dozen summits higher than 14,000 feet; the trailheads leading to 11 of them are within about an hour of where he sat.
“Bishop would be like Santa Monica” if the city had room to grow, he said. “People would come from all over because of the beauty of this place.”
A City of Los Angeles private property sign wards off would-be campers outside Bishop.
Adam Perez, the DWP’s top manager in the Owens Valley, said it’s easy to point the finger at his agency and blame it for the stagnation. But the DWP manages the land responsibly, he said. The overarching mission remains what it always was — to send the water down to Los Angeles — but the department works hard to be more than just “bullies that are trying to push people around,” he said.
The agency allows hiking, hunting, fishing and camping on most of its land, he pointed out.
And if you’re lucky enough to own one of the existing houses, he said, you might like the fact that your view across that incredible landscape is never going to be marred by “a big housing tract” plunked down in the middle of it.
“You’re always going to have a protected view,” Perez said.
If Perez is at the top of the local pecking order, the young climbers who flock to Bishop from around the globe to train on world-class crags in Buttermilk Country and the Owens River Gorge are near the bottom.
The Mammoth Gear Exchange, a secondhand sporting goods shop on a corner of Bishop’s main intersection, is a local landmark and regular haunt for climbers. On a recent weekday morning, a handful of the shop’s employees agreed with at least some of what Perez said: They love that Bishop remains so remote and that it hasn’t succumbed to suburban sprawl as have climbing meccas near Denver and Boulder.
But all of them have spent long stretches living out of their vans, even after they decided to give up the itinerant life of a hard-core traveling climber and tried to put down roots.
One, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Peter, to avoid attracting attention from parking enforcement, said he had been living in a van since making the trek from Ohio to California 2½ years ago. His girlfriend lives with him.
They’re in no rush to start paying rent, he said, but it didn’t take much prompting to get him to rattle off a long list of the difficulties.
Homes to the right, grazing land to the left, and the wide open spaces beyond in the Eastern Sierra town of Bishop.
“When you’ve lived in a house your whole life, you don’t realize how much you value your own space,” he said, choosing his words carefully. Forget about getting anything delivered from Amazon.
“It seems like the whole system is set up” for people who live in houses, he said, “like, you’re supposed to have a permanent address.”
He sounded almost mystical when his thoughts turned to the comforts of indoor plumbing. “Just having warm water to wash your hands on demand,” he said. “Like, you just turn the dial.”
Back up the hill in Mammoth, Markstein’s description of van life also frequently circled back to the issue of plumbing.
“During COVID, I was showering in the creek,” she said, because social distancing requirements made invitations to use indoor bathrooms hard to come by. “Right now, I rotate through my friends’ houses to get my weekly shower.”
Then, realizing how that might sound to an audience of the uninitiated, she added: “For many people that’s pretty gross, but for people living in a van it’s kind of normal.”
During her stint as a tree trimmer, she guessed about 70% of the properties she worked on sat empty because they were either second homes or unoccupied Airbnbs. That was immensely “frustrating” for someone working her butt off, living in a van, she said.
But maybe nothing is as frustrating for van lifers, or occupies as big a chunk of their daily bandwidth, as the question of where to find a toilet.
At one point, a few of her friends worked at an organic coffee shop on Main St. called Stellar Brew. It had a comfortable, welcoming vibe. Word spread quickly. Before long, Markstein said, she’d go there in the morning and see “10 vans lined up” in the parking lot.
The inside joke was: “Have a stellar poo at Stellar Brew.”
Working as a tree trimmer, Emily Markstein saw second homes and Airbnbs sitting empty. That was “frustrating” for someone working her butt off, living in a van, she said.
The shop’s general manager, Nikki Lee, had nothing but sympathy and praise for the van lifers.
The housing situation is so precarious for working people in Mammoth, Lee said, she actually prefers job candidates who live in their vans. Their lives are more stable than people engaged in the almost always losing battle of trying to hold on to an apartment in a town where rent is often upward of $4,000 a month and constantly rising.
A current full-time baker at the shop, who used to be a kindergarten teacher, lives in his van, Lee said.
“I don’t ever let that be a deterrent for hiring,” Lee said, “because I know that the folks that live in their van, they can make the commitment to stay.”
Two people allegedly used $100 counterfeit bills at dozens of In-N-Out Burger restaurants in Southern California in a wide-reaching scam.
Glendale Police officials said in a statement Friday that 26-year-old Tatiyanna Foster of Long Beach was taken into custody last month. Another suspect, 24-year-old Auriona Lewis, also of Long Beach, was arrested in October.
Police released images of $100 bills used to purchase a $2.53 order of fries and a $5.93 order of a Flying Dutchman.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Lewis with felony counterfeiting and grand theft in November.
Elizabeth Megan Lashley-Haynes, Lewis’s public defender, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Glendale police said that Lewis was arrested in Palmdale in an operation involving the U.S. Marshals Task Force. Foster is expected in court later this month, officials said.
”Lewis was found to be in possession of counterfeit bills matching those used in the Glendale incident, along with numerous gift cards and transaction receipts believed to be connected to similar fraudulent activity,” according to a police statement.
A representative for In-N-Out Burger told KTLA-TV that restaurants in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties were also targeted by the alleged scam.
“Their dedication and expertise resulted in the identification and apprehension of the suspects, helping to protect our business and our communities,” In-N-Out’s Chief Operations Officer Denny Warnick said. “We greatly value the support of law enforcement and appreciate the vital role they play in making our communities stronger and safer places to live.”
The company, opened in 1948 in Baldwin Park, has restaurants in nine states.
An Oakland location closed in 2024, with the owner blaming crime and slow police response times.
Company chief executive Lynsi Snyder announced last year that she planned to relocate her family to Tennessee, although the burger chain’s headquarters will remain in California.
Business
Newsom’s budget includes $200 million to make up for Trump’s canceled EV rebates, among other climate items
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday doubled down on California’s commitment to electric vehicles with proposed rebates intended to backfill federal tax credits canceled by the Trump administration.
The plan would allocate $200 million in one-time special funds for a new point-of-sale incentive program for light-duty zero-emissions vehicles. It was part of a sweeping $348.9-billion state budget proposal released Friday, which also included items to address air pollution and worsening wildfires, amid a projected $3-billion state deficit.
EVs have become a flashpoint in California’s battle against the Trump administration, which moved last year to repeal the state’s long-held authority to set strict tailpipe emission standards and eventually ban the sale of new gas powered cars.
Last year, Trump ended federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for EV customers that were part of President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. In September, his administration also let lapse federal authorization for California’s Clean Air Vehicle decal program, which allowed solo EV drivers to use carpool lanes.
“Despite federal interference, the governor maintains his commitment to protecting public health and achieving California’s world leading climate agenda,” Lindsay Buckley, spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board, said in an email. “This incentive program will help continue the state’s ZEV momentum, especially with the federal administration eliminating the federal EV tax credit and carpool lane access.”
Newsom had previously flip-flopped on this idea, first vowing to restore a state program that provided up to $7,500 to buy clean cars and then walking it back in September. That same month, a group of five automakers including Honda, Rivian, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Audi wrote a letter urging Newsom and state legislators to establish a $5,000 EV tax rebate to replace the lost federal incentives, Politico reported.
During his State of the State speech Thursday — one year after the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles — Newsom said California “refuse[s] to be bystanders” while China and other nations take the lead on electric vehicles and the clean energy transition. He touted the state’s investments in solar, hydrogen, wind and nuclear power, as well as its recent move away from the use of any coal-fired power.
“We must continue our prudent fiscal management, funding our reserves, and continuing the investments Californians rely on, from education to public safety, all while preparing for Trump’s volatility outside our control,” the governor said in a statement. “This is what responsible governance looks like.”
Several environmental groups had been urging Newsom to invest more in clean air and clean vehicle programs, which they say are critical to the state’s ambitious goals for human health and the environment. Transportation is the largest source of climate and air pollution in California and is responsible for more than a third of global warming emissions, said Daniel Barad, Western states policy manager with the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists.
“As federal attacks threaten California’s authority to protect public health, incentives are more essential than ever to scale up clean cars and trucks,” Barad said. “The governor and legislative leaders must act now to fully fund zero-emission transportation and pursue new revenue to grow and sustain climate investments.”
Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California senior director with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, called it “an essential step to save money for Californians, cut harmful pollution, spur innovation, and support the global competitiveness of our auto industry.”
While the budget proposal does not include significant new spending proposals, it contains other line items relating to climate and the environment. Among them are plans to continue implementing Proposition 4, the $10-billion climate bond approved by voters in 2024 for programs geared toward wildfire resilience, safe drinking water, flood management, extreme heat mitigation and other similar efforts.
Among $2.1 billion in climate bond investments proposed this year are $58 million for wildfire prevention and hazardous fuels reduction projects in vulnerable communities, and nearly $20 million to assist homeowners with defensible space to prevent fire. Water-related investments include $232 million for flood control projects and nearly $70 million to support repairs to existing or new water conveyance projects.
The proposal also lays out how to spend money from California’s signature cap-and-trade program, which sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allows large polluters to buy and sell unused emission allowances at quarterly auctions. State lawmakers last year voted to extend the program through 2045 and rename it cap-and-invest.
The spending plan includes a new tiered structure for cap-and-invest that first funds statutory obligations such as manufacturing tax exemptions, followed by $1 billion for the high speed rail project, $750 million to support the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and finally secondary program funding such as affordable housing and low-carbon transit options.
But while some groups applauded the budget’s broad handling of climate issues, others criticized it for leaning too heavily on volatile funding sources for environmental priorities, such as special funds and one-time allocations.
The Sierra Club called the EV incentive program a crucial investment but said too many other items were left with “patchwork strategies that make long-term planning harder.”
“Just yesterday, the Governor acknowledged in his State of the State address that the climate risk is a financial risk. That is exactly why California needs climate investments that are stable and ongoing,” said Sierra Club director Miguel Miguel.
California Environmental Voters, meanwhile, stressed that the state should continue to work toward legislation that would hold oil and gas companies liable for damages caused by their emissions — a plan known as “Make Polluters Pay” that stalled last year amid fierce lobbying and industry pressure.
“Instead of asking families to absorb the costs, the Legislature must look seriously at holding polluters accountable for the harm they’ve caused,” said Shannon Olivieri Hovis, California Environmental Voters’ chief strategy officer.
Sarah Swig, Newsom’s senior advisor for climate, noted that the state’s budget plan came just days after Trump withdrew the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a major global treaty signed by nearly 200 countries with the aim of addressing global warming through coordinated international action.
“California is not slowing down on climate at a time when we continue to see attack after attack from the federal government, including as recently as this week with the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the UNFCCC,” Swig told reporters Friday. “California’s leadership has never mattered more.”
Business
Abandoned shops and missing customers: Fire-scarred businesses are still stuck in the aftermath
The charred remains of the historic Pacific Palisades Business Block cast a shadow over a once-bustling shopping district along West Sunset Boulevard.
Empty lots littered with debris and ash line the street where houses and small businesses once stood. A year since the Palisades fire roared through the neighborhood, only a handful of businesses have reopened.
The Starbucks, Bank of America, and other businesses that used to operate in the century-old Business Block are gone. All that remains of the Spanish Colonial Revival building are some arches surrounding what used to be a busy retail space. The burned-out, rusty remnants of a walk-in vault squat in the center of the structure.
Nearby, the Shade Store, the Free-est clothing store, Skin Local spa, a Hastens mattress store, Sweet Laurel Bakery and the Hydration Room are among the many stores still shuttered. Local barbershop Gornik & Drucker doesn’t know if it can reopen.
“We have been going back and forth on what it would take to survive,” co-owner Leslie Gornik said. “If we open, we have to start over from scratch.”
Hundreds gathered around Business Block on the anniversary of he fire on Wednesday to witness a military-style white-glove ceremony to pay respects to the families who lost loved ones. Photos of those killed from the neighborhood were placed at the Palisades Village Green next door.
The Palisades fire burned for 24 days, destroying more than 6,800 structures, damaging countless others and forcing most of the neighborhood’s residents to move elsewhere. About 30 miles northeast, the Eaton fire burned more than 9,400 structures. Combined, the fires killed 31 people.
Remnants of the the Pacific Palisades Business Block, which was completed in 1924 and burned in the Palisades fire.
The few businesses that are back in Palisades serve as a beacon of hope for the community, but owners and managers say business is down and customers haven’t returned.
Ruby Nails & Spa, located near the Business Block, was closed for eight months before reopening in September. Now business is only half of what it was before the fires, owner Ruby Hong-Tran said.
“People come back to support but they live far away now,” she said. “All my clients, their houses burned.”
Ruby Hong-Tran, owner of Ruby Nails & Spa in Pacific Palisades, says her business is half of what it was since reopening.
It took months to clean all the smoke damage from her shop. The front is still being fixed to cover up burn damage.
The firestorms destroyed swaths of other neighborhoods, including Malibu, Topanga, Sierra Madre and Altadena, where businesses and homeowners also are struggling to build back.
Some are figuring out whether it is worth rebuilding. Some have given up.
The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimated last year that more than 1,800 small businesses were in the burn zones in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena, impacting more than 11,000 jobs.
Businesses say they often have been on their own. The Federal Emergency Management Agency tasked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up debris at private residences, some public buildings and places of worship — but not commercial properties.
Business owners had to clean up the charred debris and toxic waste on their properties. Many had to navigate complicated insurance claims and apply for emergency loans to stay afloat.
Rosie Maravilla, general manager of Anawalt’s Palisades Hardware, said damage to her store was limited, and insurance covered the cleaning, so she was able to open quickly. The store reopened just one month after the fire.
Rosie Maravilla, general manager of Anawalt Palisades Hardware, in front of of the store in Pacific Palisades.
Still, sales are 35% lower than what they used to be.
“In the early days, it was bad. We weren’t making anything,” Maravilla said. “We’re lucky the company kept us employed.”
The customer base has changed. Instead of homeowners working on personal projects, the store is serving contractors working on rebuilding in the area.
An archival image of the area in Pacific Palisades hangs over the aisles in Anawalt Palisades Hardware, where business is down despite a customer base of contractors who are rebuilding.
Across the street from the Business Block, the Palisades Village mall was spared the flames and looks pristine, but is still closed. Shop windows are covered with tarps. Low metal gates block entry to the high-end outlets. The mall is still replacing its drywall to eliminate airborne contaminants that the fire could have spread.
All of its posh shops still are shut: Erewhon, Lululemon ,Bay Theater, Blue Ribbon Sushi, athletic apparel store Alo, Buck Mason men’s and Veronica Beard women’s boutiques.
Mall owner and developer Rick Caruso said he is spending $60 million to reopen in August.
The need to bring back businesses impacted by the fires is urgent, Caruso said, and not just to support returning residents.
“It’s critical to bring jobs back and also for the city to start creating some tax revenue to support city services,” he said. ”Leaders need to do more to speed up the rebuilding process, such as speeding up the approval of building permits and stationing building inspectors closer to burn areas.”
Pedestrians walk past the Erewhon market in Palisades Village that plans to reopen this year.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Wednesday, on the anniversary of the fire, Caruso sent three light beams into the sky over the mall, which met in one stream to honor the impacted communities of Pacific Palisades, Altadena and Malibu.
The nighttime display will continue through Jan. 31.
Business Block’s history dates to 1924, when it served as a home for the community’s first ventures. In the 1980s, plans to tear it down and build a mall sparked a local uprising to save the historic symbol of the neighborhood’s vibrancy. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1984.
Tiana Noble, a Starbucks spokesperson, said the landlord terminated the company’s lease when the building burned down. Bank of America said it secured a new lease to rebuild nearby.
Business Block’s fate is still unclear. Some people want to preserve its shell and turn it into a memorial.
This week, it was ringed by a fence emblazoned with the words “Empowering fresh starts together.”
Caruso said the ruins should be torn down.
“It needs to be demolished and cleaned up,” he said. “It’s an eyesore right now and a hazard. I would put grass on it and make it attractive to the community.”
Twisted and scorched remnants of the the Pacific Palisades Business Block still are there a year after the fire.
A short walk from the Business Block and near a burned-down Ralphs grocery store is the Palisades Garden Cafe, one of the few places in the neighborhood to get food and drink. The small, vibrant cafe was closed for two months after the fire, during which the employees went without pay.
Manager Lita Rodriguez said business is improving, but misses the regulars.
“We used to get tons of students and teachers who live and work here,” she said. “Our customers are mostly contractors now.”
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